Prune and port tart

Babiche Martens

When it comes to French desserts, it's hard to go past a good tart. I've been making this one for years. Prunes soaked in alcohol are soft, sticky and sweet. I like to fold extra prunes through whipped cream to serve.

Pastry

150 g	Flour
2 Tbsp	Sugar
100 g	Butter
1 Tbsp	Water, cold
1	Egg

Filling

200 g	Pitted prunes (Main)
½ cup	Port, or brandy
3	Eggs
2 Tbsp	Caster sugar
2 Tbsp	Cornflour
150 ml	Cream
100 ml	Milk
1 tsp	Vanilla essence/extract
1 Tbsp	Port

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 180C.
2. To make the pastry, whizz the flour, sugar and butter in a processor until it resembles fine crumbs. Add the egg and water and blitz until your dough is formed. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Roll the dough on a lightly floured bench, and line a 22cm tart tin. Line with baking paper and rice and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and cook for a further 5 minutes to dry the pastry. Set aside and prepare the filling. Turn the oven down to 160C.
4. Place the prunes in a small pot. Pour over the port and warm gently without boiling. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
5. To make the filling, lightly whip the eggs and sugar. Add the cornflour, cream, milk, vanilla and tablespoon of port. Mix well.
6. Place most of the prunes over the pastry base. Pour the filling over and bake for 30 minutes until the centre is just set.
7. Dust tart generously with icing sugar.
8. Roughly squash the remaining prunes in the port and fold them through whipped cream for serving.

tip

Check out Ray McVinnie's video on'How to make chocolate shards'